Are we sure Bayern Munich are still a well-run club?
Uli Hoeneß's public spat with Thomas Tuchel hints at a Bayern Munich heirarchy that are all out of ideas and struggling to keep Germany's biggest club where it needs to be.
One would be forgiven for thinking it was Bayern Munich and not Bayer Leverkusen that had wrapped up the Bundesliga title with a handful of games to spare, for the way Thomas Tuchel found himself rolling his eyes and offering sarcastic responses to serious questions, prior to Saturday’s 2-1 victory over Eintracht Frankfurt. Bayern had seemingly hung up their boots for another season and FC Hollywood had returned to town for their spring showing.
In a panel discussion late last week with the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Bayern honorary president Uli Hoeneß had somewhat surprisingly decided to start a spat with the club’s departing head coach by suggesting that Tuchel hadn’t made the most of the squad at his disposal this season. “He doesn’t think that you can improve [Aleksandar] Pavlovic, that you can improve [Alphonso] Davies,” said the man considered by most to be the founding father of Bayern’s all-conquering last few decades of success. “And when he thinks that you can’t get any further, he thinks you should just go and buy.”
Some, perhaps, would find themselves nodding along in agreement with Hoeneß. For all of Tuchel’s success in the Champions League to date, there’s little doubt that the former Mainz and Borussia Dortmund tactician couldn’t land a glove on Leverkusen with a squad that had won 11 league titles in a row. But, in truth, it was a thinly-veiled attempt by the Bayern hierarchy to not only blot the record of a head coach that may dare to stroll out of Säbener Straße with his head held high, but also a move to defend the institution that he has firmly pointed the finger at and deemed to be faltering in more ways than one.
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